I Didn’t See This One Coming
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On another subject entirely, Sarah Palin has announced that she will not seek re-election and will be resigning from her office in a few weeks. The GOP really is in freefall. The governor most Republicans like and want to support is apparently dropping out of politics, and Mark Sanford remains in office despite scandal and disgrace. Though there is otherwise really nothing in common between them, Palin is every bit as finished politically on a national level as Sanford is.
Despite all of the talk about the recent Vanity Fair feature on her, Andrew’s renewed obsessions with every detail of her life raising of important questions, John’s tireless refutations of those obsessions important questions, and reports of the continued support she enjoys from most Republicans, I have felt no need to say anything about her for several months. By the end of the election campaign, I had come to think that she was unqualified for the post she was seeking, and I probably allowed her more irritating supporters to color my judgment of her more than I should have, but once the election was over I would have been pleased to let her get on with her work in Alaska. After a flurry of post-election appearances, she seemed to do just that, and that was fine. I don’t think I ever feared that she would run for President in 2012. If she ran, she would lose the nomination to someone else, and if she didn’t she would have gone off into the sunset with all of the other losing VP candidates. Palin was never as threatening to the left nor as wonderful for the right as both sides imagined. Her resignation will prove to be a good thing for her, her family and Alaska. Her tenure as governor has been so lackluster that it might be fair to say that Palin never demonstrated her worthiness for the office so much as in her departing from it.
Never has a major political candidate been so poorly served by her own supporters. To quote that Russian proverb again, “The yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you.” Palin was surrounded and cheered on by almost nothing but yes-men, because once anyone tried to offer any kind of criticism that person seemed to become persona non grata in her circle and in the wider conservative world pretty quickly. That is why a reasonable column offering advice and encouragement to Palin could be met by so much insane fury from so many of her supporters. It will be very difficult to explain to later generations what it was that the Palinites saw in her that made them so fervent and enthusiastic. The Palin enthusiasm of 2008 will not end up making much sense a few years from now. At least the excitement about a Jack Kemp presidential campaign after 1996 was based in a record with some accomplishments in it.
While I initially gave her some benefit of the doubt, I never pretended to be a supporter, because I could not bring myself to cheer on anyone who would work so closely with McCain, but like many on the right I found something initially very likeable about her. After the first week or so, likeability became much less important once we started finding out something about her record. What came to be so annoying about her was not so much that she performed poorly in interviews, had no policy knowledge outside of issues related to oil, and had an unremarkable record as governor (except when she was jacking up windfall profits taxes to redistribute liberate the money from oil corporations), but it was that her supporters seemed intent on never acknowledging her errors, refused to hold her accountable when she made misleading statements and began making virtues out of her weaknesses. Whether or not Palin could have become a much better candidate, there was no way that things could work out well for her or the country with supporters like this.
P.S. I never did understand why so many people on the right liked to refer to her as conservatives’ Joan of Arc. At least in the earthly, political sphere, that meant she was doomed to defeat. Just another example of the sheer weirdness of some of her supporters, I suppose.
Update: This was not clear to me when I started writing this post, but it seems that there are crazy people advising Palin that this is how she can run for President in 2012. John Weaver observes that it doesn’t make sense:
“I’m not smart enough to see the strategy in this,” said John Weaver, a senior party strategist. “Good point guards don’t quit and walk off the court.”
To use a different sports reference, there are no votes in becoming the Vince Young of politics.
Second Update: I keep seeing these odd Richard Nixon references in commentary on this resignation. As Alex Massie notes, Richard Nixon was already a fairly significant, well-established political figure by 1960. Just as important, he was the losing candidate in a close race in which he was the presidential candidate, and so far as I know Nixon never resigned from a major office before his term was up unless it was to take a more prestigious post. To make a Nixonian comeback, it might be helpful if Palin’s career were in any way comparable to Nixon’s.
Third Update: After a commenter appropriately pointed out my stupidity, I need to correct that one remark about Nixon. Obviously, at the end of his career he did resign his office in disgrace. I was referring to the pre-1968 period of his career, but made a silly blanket statement.
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25 Responses to “I Didn’t See This One Coming”
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Can’t wait to read R.S. McCain on Palin. This makes his rants against certain cons seem plainly wrong.
At least it didn’t take a military coup to get rid of her.
Of course, maybe now she can lead the Alaskan secessionist movement, win independence for her state, and become the first Alaskan Empress of Ice Cream.
I think there is a larger point, indicated by the odd situation of two Senators running for the Presidency this year, that has been missed; being Governor may no longer be a stepping stone to the Presidency. In fact, despite constant caterwauling by some about “Executive experience”, the truth is the “experience” governors earn is almost wholly useless for the majority of stuff that running the Presidency requires, which is intimate knowledge of Congress, federal bureaucracies, and foreign policy, none of which Governors deal with that much.
Despite the fireworks over stimulus, for instance, most of Sanford’s efforts in South Carolina revolved around peculiarly South Carolina state issues, such as our constitutional governance, the Budget and Control Board, school vouchers, etc. None of this, with the exception of school policy, has any bearing on national questions. I imagine most governors of other states spend as much time on such unique issues in their own state.
Only time will tell if this happens to be the case, but I think the stepping stone theory to the Presidency is debatable now.
Oh, and for the record, even her “knowledge” of oil is bereft. The biggest development project in her state, the natural gas pipeline, is nowhere near being finished with planning and siting, let alone actual construction. It is also notable that the project was begun with arguably the most protectionist, socialistic piece of legislation ever; the Alaska Gas Pipeline Inducement act which requires, amongst other things, that people hired be from Alaska, that cities and towns can siphon off gas for a reduced-rate, that labor be contracted from hiring halls, as well as enforcing pricing between competing companies through regulation. (For the record I am not against any of these things on principle, but I do find it amusing for Palin to talk about socialism in a state whose government works hand in glove with the extraction industry).
Sean S., those things aren’t BAD socialism. They’re the good kind of socialism, you know, good for America. Maybe call it “national socialism.”
As one that came out against her before most anyone, I would like to say I’m surprised. I’m not. A lot of politicians have resigned over the past year, because this is not a good time to be a mindless ideologue, glad handing your way to the top. For all the talk about the attention her family’s dysfunction received, the truth is that her budgetary choices were going to be very tough. It is easy being a politician when your choices are ice cream or cake, and you can say, “Let’s do both!” Politicians are now facing the question of which bad choice is better. They are faced with the situation where the only sane people in the room aren’t likely to share one’s ideological priorities. Add to this Palin’s inability to delegate, and it isn’t difficulty to see how managing a tiny state could be too much for her.
Mr. Larison, I’m sure you are thinking only before 1960, but that isn’t clear when you type this: …and so far as I know Nixon never resigned from a major office before his term was up unless it was to take a more prestigious post.
He did have a resignation in 1975, and it didn’t lead to anything more prestigious…
The reason Tina Fey found Palin so easy to lampoon is that Palin is an American high school archetype. She’s the pretty and moderately clever girl who figured out early in adolescence that she could get a lot farther with corrupt or gullible male authority figures by flirting, lying, pleading, appealing to pieties, and blaming other people. The lying and deceiving soon becomes near-pathological and from there turns into a life strategy: the Pious Fraud.
A surprising lot of the GOP base evidently identifies with that and enjoys how she flaunts it. The one unforgivable sin in that ‘ethos’ is to admit to it to the marks.
And yes, there are rumors of a federal investigation and material for a federal indictment going around in Alaska. It seems the company that built the stadium in Wasilla also built the Palin house for, er, free. Strangely, they forgot to mention it in any and all paperwork. Todd Palin may not be quite the carpenter he claimed himself to be.
I never did understand why so many people on the right liked to refer to her as conservatives’ Joan of Arc. At least in the earthly, political sphere, that meant she was doomed to defeat.
Joan was a martyr. Do I need to explain the significance for Palin and her fans?
Her cause wasn’t defeated. Have you ever heard Queen Elizabeth hailed as Queen of France?
Palin is as unimpressive on energy as on any other topic. She has a few memorized, mostly inaccurate talking points. When she runs out of them she repeats them, or lapses into her familiar incoherence.
Too bad Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Warren are all dead. What a novel this would make. JK Toole, for that matter.
TC Boyle, C Buckley, or my Nobel pick, Elmoore Leonard–all alive. Cmon, guys!
“The pretty and moderately clever girl in high school”. This a terrible slander on the pretty and moderately clever girl in high school, who was a friend of mine. First off the Real McCoy would have prepared up the wazoo and would have crushed Katie Couric like a bug. Second, unless you are Rick Lowry, Gov. Palin ain’t that hot. I mean, she is definitely easier on the eyes than, say, Fred Thompson but far from the dish that that young lady on C-Span is (what the Hell is her name).
If the governor is smart she will blow off this political nonsense and sign a contract with Fox News. Huckabee is going to run again, and there will be an open time slot when he steps down.
A lot of politicians have resigned over the past year, because this is not a good time to be a mindless ideologue, glad handing your way to the top. For all the talk about the attention her family’s dysfunction received, the truth is that her budgetary choices were going to be very tough. It is easy being a politician when your choices are ice cream or cake, and you can say, “Let’s do both!”
Good point.
I would add that Palin is quitting just as her popularity hits 55%. Getting out before it goes below 50% allows her to keep claiming to have been a ‘popular governor of Alaska’, without ambiguity.
I have to admit I liked reading about Andrew’s obsessions and the rage it generated. Fun stuff. But I’m surprised it took so long for him to realize that the most likely (and simplest) explanation was that she lied about her airplane trip. Especially in light of his ongoing catalog of her lies, why didn’t he apply what he knew to her first lie?
As for Palin’s followers, my sister is a true-believer, mother of 5, home-schooler and blogger. Read a few big family home-schooling mom blog comments and you realize a large percentage of the discourse is how beautiful their families are. Beautiful family = morally good. Sad, but true.
Daniel Larison:
It will be very difficult to explain to later generations what it was that the Palinites saw in her that made them so fervent and enthusiastic. The Palin enthusiasm of 2008 will not end up making much sense a few years from now.
If at this time it makes sense and is easily explained, I would like to hear the explanation.
That sounds snarky, but I don’t mean it that way. I mean it literally, and I don’t know a better way to say it.
I am struggling to understand the Palin phenomenon. Presently I’m reading Hofstadter’s Anti-intellectualism in American Life. It sheds some light on the subject, but I’m still a long way from fully understanding it.
I still find the Palinites hard to stomach. Check this out and the comments: http://the-american-catholic.com/2009/07/03/palin-resigns/
I should stop being surprised.
I am struggling to understand the Palin phenomenon
David, I am with you in that struggle. Earlier today, over at NRO, Victor Davis Hanson proffered up his latest Palinite nugget – that by 2016 “the key is whether she convinces conservatives in eight year of travel and reflection that she’s a charismatic Margaret Thatcher type heavyweight.” Good luck with all that, VDH. What an insult to the Iron Baroness. I cannot conceive of the formidable _ever_ anouncing to a breathless and enraptured audience that, in paraphrase, “Only quitters stick it out and toil-on; winners quit!”.
The most amazing thing to me is that, generally, the most vociferous affirmants of the hidden depths and subtle steely judgement of the Alaskan SuperMom are the ones who most contemptuously derided Obama supporters as buying into style over substance.
Happy July 4th to all of my American cousins south of the Great White North – the best neighbour a country could ask for, if an oftimes puzzling and unpredictable one!
Cheers.
To make a Nixonian comeback, it might be helpful if Palin’s career were in any way comparable to Nixon’s.
I don’t expect her to have a Nixonian comeback. I do expect her to try. The results are more likely to look like Perot’s in-and-out routine in 1992.
Daniel Larison:
I don’t think I ever feared that she would run for President in 2012. If she ran, she would lose the nomination . . .
I have long thought that Palin is likely to be the Rudy Giuliani of 2012. She may have high poll numbers and lots of buzz and ‘excitement’ up until the first primaries or nearly so, but in the heat of the contests she will melt down and possibly not win a single primary. Where the evangelicals are strong she may lose to Huckabee, and everywhere else she is likely to trail the pack.
Any chance she had of winning the nomination has now gone to negligible if not zero. If voters forget, primary rivals will make it their business to remind them.
In all the discussion of Palin’s speech, there has been scant mention of the possibility that it contains some of her trademark brazen lies. No one in the media has fact-checked it yet, as far as I know.
Before the speech, Andrew Sullivan had already linked to this:
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/02/numbers-shmumbers/
Nice VY reference, Daniel. Recalling some of your earlier posts, I figured you’d like this sentence, from the Times article on Steve McNair’s death:
“I am struggling to understand the Palin phenomenon.”
I have said before that both the love in some quarters and the hatred in others are completely inexplicable. Her actual positions are pretty run-of-the-mill. This most recent strange action is the first truly distinctive thing she has done.
I do think she has a good chance of winning the nomination in 2012, however, unless (my pet prediction) Cheney runs.
It has occurred to me that Palin’s fans are not, as I at first thought, merely tolerant of Palin’s decision. It’s what many of them actively desire. They are as impatient as Palin herself with that boring old job in boring old Alaska. They want her time free so she can start touring the lower 48 and inspiring them.
It’s another sign of how little the Palinistas care about the actual business of governing, and how it is their movement that is really messianic.
I think the talk about 2012 is way way premature…how many people really thought in July 2005 that a black man with big ears whose middle name is Hussein could knock off Hillary Clinton? the election in 2012 will be determined by events, my dear boy.
The other point to consider is that as rudderless as the GOP is at this time, is how inept would the Democratic Party have looked if McCain had pulled off an upset? You’d probably have a very small Dem majority in the House, and Nancy would not be able to herd the southern Democrats, Reid can’t manage with 60 votes and would just be giving up with anything else. Dems benefit from having a once-generation leader in Obama but let’s not think the bench is all that deep on that side of the aisle either.
“Palin was never as threatening to the left nor as wonderful for the right as both sides imagined.”
I don’t think by and large we on the left found Palin threatening to us. Of course we were frightened at the prospect that she might conceivably become the President of the United States. But our main reaction was slack jawed amazement. I thought I’d become as cynical as I could be about the Republican party, but I was stunned that they would attempt to put someone so obviously unprepared for the job in a position to be first in line to become President should anything have happened to McCain. I was floored that with few exceptions, conservatives defended her selection and in some cases even repeated her argument that Alaska’s proximity to Russia somehow gave her foreign policy experience. I couldn’t believe it. Before that, I thought my respect for the Republican party couldn’t drop any lower, but I was wrong.